Tag Archives: animals

And suddenly . . .

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Sheep, as far as the eye can see . . .

. . . it’s three days since I posted.

It just seemed to happen. It’s not that I’m short of things to talk about, just the opposite in fact, but I just have trouble sorting my thoughts out. At the back of my mind there is the thought that I could be blogging thousands of words a day instead of the (intermittent) 250 I set as my target.

One of the things I have been thinking about is the many opportunities to work for no reward. I was browsing a website where a writer, who already seems to have a well-paid job was offering their literary services and directing people to the recommendations of various bodies about fair pay for artists. This person was active in education, which I always find ironic.

Lambs, everybody loves lambs.

When we used to host students on the farm we were paid, grudgingly, £5 per student. It couldn’t be more than that, we were told, because the students couldn’t afford it – the college wasn’t even paying. For that they had at least twelve hours of input from us, plus insurance, hot drinks, materials and access to animals, and paid us £50. The college, meanwhile, was spending millions on new buildings.

They wrote to us at the time offering their expertise on a consultancy basis. It was £75 per person per hour.

I demonstrate the secret of my success in Egg and Spoon racing

Words definitely do not fail me at this point, but I won’t use the ones that I have in mind. I wanted to reply that if they wanted to carry on using our facilities they would have to pay two staff for six hours each – a total of £900 compared to the £50 they were actually paying.

I was not allowed to send that reply.

They also sent us a Modern Slavery Declaration to sign, as we were one of their “suppliers”.  So we didn’t just get paid a pittance, we were expected to fill out paperwork to justify ourselves. Ironic again, you may think, that they were so concerned about modern slavery whilst sitting in an office wearing clothes produced by child labour and intent on obtaining our services for next to nothing.

Their staff didn’t even come prepared. We had to provide lunch for one of them, who assumed their would be shops in the village, and on another occasion one reached over my shoulder as I was working at my desk and took one of my pens.

So much to say, so little time . . .

Cute kid or spawn of the devil?

Beavers!

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What do you say?

One of the parents said: “They’re very excited about this visit.”

You could tell that from the fact they were milling about looking at everything and chattering. It was clear that this wasn’t going to be a night for reflection and following instructions, and although I had all the stuff ready for toasting marshmallows it was also clear that it wasn’t a night for naked flames!

If they ever come back I’m going to be sure to pack a rugby ball and my whistle plus some maps and compasses. As it was, we did think about running them round the farm but it started to rain. So it was visit the sheep, visit the chicks and keets, look at the young goats in their new field (they aren’t happy at being taken away from their mothers), view the guinea fowl doing impersonations of vultures, strain to see the geese (who had taken up a position at the back of the field) and go back to the centre.

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Julia set them going on making folded paper animals (Orifarmi, as LEAF call them) and I set up the butter-making, which is generally enough to sap the energy from the most energetic of small people. It just about worked. We are getting more cunning as time goes on.

In amongst the frenetic effort there were quite a few questions to field too – about the building, farming and animals. Even whilst running about they didn’t miss much, and you need to be on top of your game .

It’s nice seeing all this youthful enthusiasm but I wouldn’t want to have to try and direct it every week. I really don’t know how their leaders do it.

I’m off home now – not sure what awaits us as the kids are cooking the evening meal. I suspect it will feature chicken, vegetables and salad. I’m sure it’s healthy and wholesome, but it’s not food as I know it.

(It turned out to be sausages in baguettes, with red onions and barbecue sauce and chips and a modest salad on the side.)

 

Bread, butter and Brownies – Part 2

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Well, I’ve updated the gallery page with a slideshow, if you’re interested, and I’ve re-read Part 1 and realised that I may have been slightly less than accurate in my comments on butter making. It’s easy, as I said. However, twice it has proved to be impossible. I did it as a unit of a PTLLS course I took some years ago – the cream was hot from being in the back of the car and the evening was humid and the classroom unventilated. After half an hour of shaking, as I showed signs of passing out, they decided to let me off that bit. It still took me an hour after that to stop shaking. The other time was similar, hot and humid day, trying to make butter at a care home. Fortunately, with a clientèle that were all around 90 we were able to nip to the kitchen and substitute butter from the fridge without anyone spotting it.

So, butter making is generally easy. Apart from when it isn’t.

I’ve just been run into the ground by 23 Brownies. I don’t think I could cope with being a Brownie leader – the enthusiasm is great, but I don’t have the energy to keep up!

It’s also trickier doing the visit on your own, but as Julia was working at her “proper” job tonight we didn’t have much choice. What is a seamless performance with the two of us working like a well-oiled machine (I may be exaggerating a bit here), becomes a touch fraught as you have to prepare everything in advance and go from one to the other hoping that it all fits together. It just about did. I forgot the picking of herbs and chillies for the soup until I had them all washing their hands in the outside sink so I had to alter my choice of herbs to sage and golden marjoram – those being the ones they could see from the sink.

There was also a bit of  a gap where I needed to serve up the soup, but the leaders covered that for me with a song about gorilla snot. Yes, it was a surprise to me too.

😉

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In the end it all went reasonably well, kids and leaders seemed happy, we had no accidents, the animals behaved (OK, apart from the goats) and I’m left with a feeling of well-being as we head into tomorrow and the fifth day. I’ve a few points to improve on but nothing too bad.

List for tomorrow – cream crackers, fly spray (it’s not good weather for those of us with waterless toilets), air freshener (ditto), long bamboo skewers (for our November Project), and bread for lunch.

I think that’s it…

 

 

In which a farmer gets a shock…

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We had a college out today, studying animal husbandry. As with a lot of these things, we interpreted the brief widely and showed them how to put up electric fencing to keep animals in place. It is always interesting, as nettles and electric shocks are a constant hazard for people who aren’t used to working on farms.

They are a constant hazard even for people who do know what they are doing. I once lost the feeling my right arm after touching an electric fence (though it did come back quite quickly, unlike the time I contracted Saturday Night Palsy). The Farmer went one better today, not only touching the fence but being told off for his language after doing so. That really is adding insult to injury.

There isn’t a lot more to add, as it’s been a day of dull work and even duller paperwork. It seems I used the wrong piece of paper for something a couple of weeks ago so I was told off today. The figures were correct but the form was incorrect. I say form, what I actually did was put the money in a paper bag and write the details on the bag. Next time I will use the right form and wrap the money in it. Let’s see how they like loose change all over the place.

There were other things, some nearly as bad as using the wrong form.

It’s also been the day when I had to confess that after putting the farm debit card “somewhere safe” I can’t actually remember where it is. This went down badly.

Fortunately I didn’t compound my crime by reporting it on the wrong form…

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